EFE Funky Videos
Chinese foreign trade grew by 9.4% in the first half of the year
Beijing, Jul 13 (EFE).- Exports once again boost China’s foreign trade, which grew by 9.4% year-on-year in the first half of 2022 to reach 19.8 trillion yuan (2.94 trillion dollars). , 2.92 billion euros), the country’s General Administration of Customs reported today. Specifically, exports denominated in yuan advanced by 13.2% in the first half to 11.14 billion yuan (1.66 billion dollars, 1.65 billion euros). By contrast, imports increased in a lower range, 4.8%, to 8.66 billion yuan (1.29 billion dollars, 1.28 billion euros), according to customs authorities. In this period, China’s trade surplus stood at about 2.48 trillion yuan (369,011 million dollars, 367,622 million euros), a figure that represents a growth of 52.1% compared to the first half of 2021 RECOVERY AFTER A DIFFICULT SPRING Customs spokesman Li Kuiwen assured that the “remarkable recovery” of international trade in the months of May and June is due to “the bringing under control” of the covid outbreaks in spring, which caused the confinement of cities such as Shanghai (east) for more than two months, and to the effect of “growth stabilization policies”. In May, China’s trade with the rest of the world had already shown signs of recovery after growing by 9.6% year-on-year, in contrast to the data for April, when the advance was reduced to 0.1% affected by the confinement of Shanghai and the restrictions on movement imposed in many parts of the Chinese geography. Customs also provided this Wednesday the data for June, the month in which the Asian giant’s exchanges with other countries rose 14.3% compared to the same month of 2021. In the sixth month of the year, imports advanced 4.8 %, while exports increased by 22%, widely exceeding analysts’ expectations, who predicted a growth of around 13%. INCREASE IN IMPORTS FROM RUSSIA In the first six months of the year, the main trading partners of the Asian country were two supranational organizations, the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) and the European Union, with whom trade grew by 10, 6% and 7.5% compared to the first half of 2021. For its part, China’s exchanges with the United States, a country with which China has had strong trade disputes since March 2018, increased by 11.7% compared to the first half of 2021. Chinese imports from Russia, immersed in an invasion of Ukraine towards which China has shown an ambiguous position, amounted to 329,160 million yuan (48,975 million dollars, 48,895 million euros), a figure that represents, according to Efe calculations, an increase of 48% with respect to Chinese imports of Russian products in the first half of 2021. In May, an increase in Chinese imports of p crude oil from Russia by 54.84% compared to the figures of the previous year. Trade between China and Russia reached a volume in the first half of 519,000 million yuan (77,238 million dollars, 77,000 million euros). UNCERTAINTY FOR THE REST OF THE YEAR All in all, spokesman Li warned today that the pandemic and the international context “are increasingly serious and complex”, and that China’s trade with the world “faces uncertain and unstable factors already great pressure to maintain stability and improve its quality. Despite this complicated international situation, Li was confident that the Asian giant will be able to “maintain stable growth” in the second half of the year. Julian Evans-Pritchard, an analyst at consultancy Capital Economics, told subscribers in a report that imports in June “fell to the lowest in three years,” which “points to continued weakness in the Chinese construction sector.” Despite the “strong recovery” in exports, Evans-Pritchard warns that June could mean the last month with a good performance in that section “before shipments fall again due to a cooling in demand.” Exports continue to be one of the great driving forces of the Chinese economy, which will publish its Gross Domestic Product (GDP) data for the first half of the year next Friday, which will include the evolution of industrial production, investment in fixed assets, retail sales and employment in a few months marked by the confinements imposed by the outbreak of covid. (c) EFE Agency
